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Yves Leterme |
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (June 2008) |
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Yves Leterme
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 20 March 2008 |
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| Monarch | Albert II |
| Deputy | Didier Reynders (Finance) Patrick Dewael (Interior) Jo Vandeurzen (Justice) Laurette Onkelinx (Social Affairs) Joëlle Milquet (Employment) |
| Preceded by | Guy Verhofstadt (acting) |
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| In office 20 July 2004 – 28 June 2007 |
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| Preceded by | Bart Somers |
| Succeeded by | Kris Peeters |
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| Born | 6 October 1960 Wervik, Belgium |
| Political party | CD&V |
| Spouse | Sofie Haesen |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Yves Camille Désiré Leterme (born 6 October 1960) is a Belgian politician, a leader of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V). In March 2008, he became the Prime Minister of Belgium. He is a former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Budget, Institutional Reforms, Transport and the North Sea in the Belgian federal government. He is also a former Minister-President of Flanders and Flemish Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. Despite his French name, Leterme is actually Flemish.
On 14 July 2008, facing the imminent failure to meet a self imposed deadline to enact "constitutional reform" consisting of further devolution of powers to the nation's three linguistic communities, Leterme tendered his resignation to King Albert II, the head of state. On 17 July, King Albert, after holding a flurry of consultations with leaders of political parties, labor unions, and the employers' association, rejected Leterme's resignation. Instead, the king appointed a three person commission of representatives of the linguistic communities to investigate how to restart the reform process. The commission was to report to the king by 31 July 2008.1
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Leterme was born in the small city of Wervik in the province of West Flanders. He studied law at the Catholic University of Leuven where he received a LL.B. degree in 1981. He then studied at Ghent University where he subsequently obtained a B.Sc. degree in Political Science (1983) and a LL.M. degree (1984). Finally he also received a MPA degree in 1985 at the same university.
Before entering national politics, Leterme served as an auditor at the country's Court of Audit (Dutch: Rekenhof, French: Cour des Comptes). He then became adjunct and then national secretary of the CVP until he resigned to become a civil servant with the European Union. In 1997 he went on indefinite leave from that position when he was appointed Member of the Belgian Parliament. He has been a member of the city council of Ypres since 1995. He served as alderman of Ypres from 1995 to 2001.
He was appointed to the House of Representatives in 1997, elected in 1999 and 2003. After the defeat of the CD&V in the general elections of 2003, he succeeded Stefaan De Clerck as party chairman. In 2004 Yves Leterme became Minister-President of the Flemish government. Flanders has fared well during his term in office. Yves Leterme took a pragmatic course onto increasing the economic dynamic and social wellbeing in Flanders. He has made the Flemish government into the ‘investment government’, focusing the investments on the infrastructure and logistics with respect to both the business climate and social wellbeing (notably Flanders Port Area, homes for the elderly, child care, immigrant integration). In order to accelerate investment he has successfully encouraged the use of the PPP structures. Additionally, Yves Leterme’s government implemented rigorous budgeting – his government started with a sizeable implicit debt in Flanders which has been reduced to zero as the result of his policies.
In the elections of 10 June 2007 Yves Leterme received 796,521 personal votes, leading his party to a landslide victory. This was the second highest amount of personal votes ever in Belgium’s national elections. On 21 December 2007 he became Vice-Prime Minister of Belgium and Minister of Budget, Transport, Institutional Reform and the North Sea. On 23 March got Yves Leterme as Prime minister confidence of the chamber.
Many French-speaking journalists take offense at Leterme's political opinions on the widely supported demand for more Flemish autonomy. They consistently decry him for making provocative or erroneous statements.
During an interview with the French newspaper Libération in August 2006, Leterme, who is himself bilingual and the son of a Walloon father, made an insulting remark about the overall failure of French-speaking inhabitants to learn and use Dutch in certain municipalities where legally they are exempted from doing so (municipalities with special dispensation for language minorities), namely in the parts of Flanders adjoining the national capital of Brussels (Flanders is the fraction of Belgian territory governed by Dutch speakers and Wallonia is the fraction governed by French speakers. Brussels is its own region. In most of Flanders Dutch is the sole official language, while in most of Wallonia French is the sole official language.)
| “ | Initially, the idea was that many French speakers would adjust to the new linguistic reality. But apparently the French speakers are intellectually not capable of learning Dutch.23 | ” |
Most prominent Francophone politicians such as Elio Di Rupo4 and Isabelle Durant along with some Flemish politicians such as Pascal Smet and Guy Vanhengel 5 objected to this remark.
A news report produced by the Belgian Francophone television company RTBF alleged that Leterme said in the Flemish parliament: "I don't need the King"67. According to Flemish newspapers, this sentence was taken out of context, because Leterme was talking about the creation of Flemish statutes (decrees): legislation approved by the Flemish parliament, unlike federal legislation, does not need the king's signature in order to become law. The Flemish Minister-President signs the decrees himself.8
On one occasion, Leterme quipped that the only common things to all Belgians are "the King, the football team, some beers...". Upon being asked by a television journalist to name which event is commemorated by Belgium's national day (21 July), Leterme wrongly replied that it was the proclamation of the constitution, when the correct answer is the coronation of the nation's first King, Leopold I of Belgium. Subsequently, he was asked if he knew the French version of the Belgian national anthem, "the Brabançonne," whereupon he began to sing the French national anthem.910
Leterme caused controversy again in a December 2007 interview with the Concentra newspapers by denouncing Belgium's Francophone public broadcast network, the RTBF, for having its own political agenda, being a propagandist for CDH politician Joëlle Milquet, and being a relic of the past. Leterme further compared the broadcaster to Radio Mille Collines, which was a Rwandan propaganda outlet against the Tutsis during the Rwandan Genocide, though he later mentioned he had only quoted what was said in political circles.11
On 6 May 2007 he officially launched his candidacy for the general election on 10 June 2007, leading his party's list of candidates.12 On election day, he received about 800,000 preferential votes, which is the second largest number of votes ever gained in the history of Belgian elections. This was one of the greatest monster tallies in recent Belgian history (the previous comparable score was obtained by Leo Tindemans).
Based on this personal tally, on the successful tally of his party, and on the general election tallies (which saw progress for every party making the strongest demands for greater Flemish autonomy, such as CD&V, N-VA and the new Lijst Dedecker LDD), status quo for the left-wing extremists Greens, and regression for the right-wing conservative Vlaams Belang and parties making only modest demands for greater Flemish autonomy (as OpenVLD, SP.A). Leterme as formateur convened the negotiations to form a coalition government, negotiations which would turn out to be protracted and initially lead to a stalemate.
Yves Leterme was the favourite to become the next Prime Minister of Belgium following the 2007 General Election.13 From 16 July to 23 August 2007, Leterme led the formal coalition talks into forming a new government. But the negotiations failed over constitutional reform and on 23 August he resigned as formateur.14
On 29 September, explorateur Herman Van Rompuy presented his final report to the King. Later that day, King Albert II again appointed Leterme as formateur.15 On 7 November his party took the initiative and got the Flemish representatives to vote on the most crucial aspect of the negotiations, the splitting of the electoral region of "Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde", a measure opposed by the Francophone community.
Leterme again offered his resignation to the King on 1 December, after coalition talks failed to reach an agreement on several issues.16
An interim government under Guy Verhofstadt was sworn in on 21 December 2007. In it, Leterme became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Budget, Institutional Reform, and Transport. He was anticipated to become Prime Minister in a new government in March 2008.17
Belgium's political uncertainty further deepened when Yves Leterme was hospitalised on 14 February 2008.1819 Rumours that he was suffering from hepatitis were formally denied by a spokesman2021, and it was later disclosed that he had suffered internal bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract. His duties as Minister for Budget and Institutional Reform were temporarily taken over by Jo Vandeurzen (CD&V), the Minister for Justice.22
On 18 March 2008, an agreement between five parties on the formation of the new government was announced.23 Leterme was sworn in as Prime Minister on 20 March,24 and his government was approved by the Chamber of Representatives on 22 March, with 97 votes in favor, 48 against, and one abstaining.25
For Leterme, priority issues were still further devolution of power to Belgium's regions, which would require amending the national constitution, and resolving dissatisfaction with the administrative status of the districts of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. He set a deadline of 15 July 2008 to accomplish these goals. The deadline was not met. On 15 July 2008, King Albert II issued a communiqué that Leterme had offered his resignation to the king, and that the king was reserving his decision on whether to accept the resignation.26 The next day, the king held consultations with the leaders of political parties, the employers' association, and labor unions. By the end of the day, it was still not resolved whether Leterme would actually be departing from the prime ministership.27 Leterme declared, "It appears that the [language] communities' conflicting visions of how to give a new equilibrium to our state have become incompatible . . . state reform remains essential".28
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Guy Verhofstadt |
Prime Minister of Belgium 2008 |
Incumbent |
| Preceded by Bart Somers |
Minister-President of Flanders 2004 – 2007 |
Succeeded by Kris Peeters |
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Leterme, Yves |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Belgian politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 6 October 1960 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wervik, West Flanders, Belgium |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
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